


You Say Cash Rules Everything Around You (What About Us?)

by FakePlastikTrees



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: F/M, paper porcupine sex!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:15:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23474509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FakePlastikTrees/pseuds/FakePlastikTrees
Summary: RIo's being a dramatic bitch. Beth is annoyed he won't stop hazing her post gunshot. They have sex.
Relationships: Beth Boland/Rio
Comments: 13
Kudos: 192





	You Say Cash Rules Everything Around You (What About Us?)

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry about the shit summary–and shit content if you hate it.

It’s been two hours. 

Even in her most nerve-wracking moments, Beth never thought her resolve to not cave and speak first would be this strong. She's always been the silent treatment champion. On her most ambitious streaks, she’s gone two weeks without speaking to Annie. Nothing. Not even a text. Annie would usually show up with a bottle of something or a six pack or something, and a desperate look on her face before Beth would give in. Now, however. Well now, the situation is slightly different.

Now she’s stuck in a room with a man who may or may not still want to kill her–she’s leaning more towards might–and he refuses to speak to her. He’s been doing this for a while now; showing up unannounced to watch her work. That he happens to show up on the days she prints alone is curious but she doesn’t question it. At least he’s showing up unaccompanied now, which is its own strange comfort. 

He doesn’t say much. He just stands there, watching her, that half-hooded stare that used to make her nervous at first, now she just finds irritating. 

She plays music when he’s there, because she can’t stand the echoes of her movements in the otherwise silent store. She goes on about her business like he isn’t there. He hates that, she thinks, but she doesn’t care. The intimidation tactics are becoming more and more of a nuisance. If what he wants is to scare her, then he really should tone it down a notch because the fear is smoothing out into a healthy cocktail of rage and annoyance that she no longer cares to water down with common sense. 

Usually she’ll let him watch until he’s had his fill, despite the nagging sensation of knowing his eyes are on her every move, just waiting, itching for a response. But today’s been a long day. Today the kids have been especially rambunctious, Stan still very clearly hates her, that much she gathered when she stopped by to drop off soup for Ruby, and they’re all still working their fingers to the bone for scraps. Scraps they have to sneak no less. 

“Is this what it’s going to be like from now on?” She asks as she hands wet bills to dry. “You show up whenever you feel like it, stand there and try to be intimidating and scary?”

He doesn’t say anything so she presses on as she clips the last few of this batch. 

“It’s not scary or intimidating anymore, you know. It’s actually just really, really annoying.” 

His jaw rocks back and forth, head tilted back as he regards her with mocking interest. It makes Beth’s blood boil. Her arms are achy from working and the anger she’s feeling coils hotly until she’s deliberately maintaining her inhales and exhales slower and longer to keep her exasperation from fully showing.

Standing back against the counter furthest from Rio, Beth crosses her arms over her chest and matches his ever present look of superiority with one of her own–Bob Marley plays softly from the small radio that sits upon a file cabinet nearby. 

“I’m curious to know if you think this like...barely concealed hostility is subtle.” 

He cranes his neck but still doesn’t reply, so Beth inhales sharply. 

“I get it,” she continues. “You don’t like me, or trust me. But I think maybe you’re a little mad at yourself, too. Right? You’ve got to be.” 

She can tell he’s slowly becoming agitated by the way his nostrils flare, the way his cheek hollows out a little when he bites the inside of it despite his otherwise calm demeanor.

“I’m thinking you might even be experiencing a little regret?” 

“Oh yeah?.”

His voice is rough, his tone low when he speaks. The sound of it is almost ragged after all his silent brooding. 

Beth nods, “Yeah.”

“Yeah, you know what? I think you’re right.”

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” he chuckles. “Right now I’m regretting not shooting you a long time ago.” 

“Mm, no. I don’t think that’s it.”

“Oh, okay. What is it then?” 

“I think you regret the decision to blindfold and kidnap me in the middle of the night. I think you realize now it was a stupid decision. That’s gotta make you a little angry, right?” 

“Careful,” he warns, shifting in his seat. 

“You’re so obsessed with having one over me that rather than using your words to communicate what you wanted to do, you screwed us both.”

“I recall only one of us getting shot that night.”

“Did you think I’d forget about the cameras in your apartment?” 

He seems just the slightest taken aback. Beth clocks the way he blinks back the surprise at her words, and now the theory that had plagued her all these months is confirmed.

“I was scared out of my mind, but I remember the cameras. The second you pulled that hood off my head and I saw Turner, I knew what you were doing. You wanted video of me shooting him so you’d have eternal leverage over me, but I’m not an idiot. You underestimate me.” 

“The only thing I underestimated was how weak you actually are.”

“I’m not weak,” she snaps. 

“I handed you an out–” 

“I  _ had _ an out. I  _ was _ out.”

“–and scared. All you had to do was shoot, and you couldn’t even do that.”

“I shot you, didn’t I?” 

He’s off his seat and striding across the room, and in her face in a matter of seconds. Beth leans back until the counter is digging into her, hands curved over the sharp ledge as she stares defiantly up at him. 

“Whatever we had that makes you think you can talk to me like that? That’s over. You understand? The world where you and I sit on your picnic table in your backyard and shoot the shit? That’s in another dimension now. Pills and funny money, and meet-ups at the park. That’s us. That’s our normal. It’s the only way we work.”

“We were  _ working _ . We were supposed to be partners, and you fucked everything up because you can’t stand that I might actually be of some value.”

“I’m going to say this once,” he says slowly. “We have one arrangement. The one where you do what I say and I don’t shoot your shady ass.” 

“Yeah, well, we’re no longer working for free. The shop is closed.” 

And then, because this seems to be where they always end up these days, and because Rio seems to think guns still scare her, he pulls his out and presses it to her chin. 

“You know what? I think I’m done negotiating.”

“You know what? I don’t think you are,” she counters, watching the vein on his temple pulsate as he grits his teeth. “And I don’t think you’re going to shoot me because if you do, Ruby and Annie will not just shut up and pick up the slack. Of course you could shoot them, too, but then again three dead ‘suburban bitches’ and one dead FBI agent isn’t exactly subtle. Is it? So, where does that leave us now?” 

Slowly, he lowers the gun, places it on the counter behind her but remains nearly chest to chest. He’s definitely, very obviously angry, but there’s relief somewhere in there, tied up with his reluctance to keep her alive. She can see the conflict in his eyes. For a brief moment, she feels saddened. They are after all just two people, and people tend to make stupid decisions when they give into a feeling, even if the feeling is just unexplainable, chaotic attraction.

“You need me right now,” She says evenly. “And you don’t have to like it, but do have to respect me. So, we’ll work  _ with _ you. Split everything 50/50. No more games, no more bearded babysitters outside my home. No more surprise kidnappings.”

Surprisingly, the tension appears to ease off his shoulders at this. His face relaxes, and in turn, so does Beth. And then a different kind of tension trickles in between them, one she hasn’t felt in a while, or allowed herself to feel. 

Some old Al Green song is playing now, and it’s all Beth can focus on to keep from falling back into it with him. But he’s leaning in a less threatening way, and he’s looking at her in that way he used to and hasn’t since he’s been back in her life, and she’s looking at his mouth. 

If they were any other two people, she’d admit she’s missed their strange push and pull; their unhealthy attraction/revulsion. He’d admit he’s missed her too–they’d maybe apologize for their poor behavior. 

“You’re a shit shot,” he says instead, so close now their chests are grazing with every intake of breath. 

“I had a shit teacher. Kinda full of himself.” 

There’s a slow-gliding hand down her side, stopping at her denim-clad hip to round towards the button of her jeans and Beth holds her breath, eyes meeting Rio’s as he pauses to survey her reaction. When she doesn’t stop him, he quickly undoes the button, lowers the zipper. 

With his fingertips poised upon her lower abdomen, just shy of touching the frilly lace of her underwear, he asks, “You gonna take a shot at me again?” 

“It depends.” 

When his hand slides lower, he touches her slowly, gently. Like they have all the time in the world, like there’s no rush; the pad of his finger gliding up and down, and around, the fitted denim keeping the friction steady. 

Beth’s breathing is now shaky despite her efforts to control it. Her hips move forward, angling toward his touch while he remains steady as his pace, self control never wavering–Beth can’t stop staring at his neck, the way the tendons flex and release there, his Adam’s apple bobbing when he swallows

“On what?” He asks as he slides two digits inside, pressing the heel of his palm against Beth’s clit, smiling when she lets out a long whine and grabs his shoulder. 

Steadying herself before replying, she breathes, “On how much of an asshole you turn into, I guess.” 

His response is a breathy chuckle, and a deft maneuver that makes Beth’s knees buckle. She feels him start to pull his hand away, but she quickly drops the hand from his shoulder, to his wrist, holding him in place. 

“Don’t stop.”

And he doesn’t stop. Instead, he kisses her. It isn’t sweet or slow like she remembers it being before. He nips at her lip as he pushes her back into the counter, his body holding her there so that she has to really work for more friction but soon his fingers are pushed to the hilt inside her and she tears her lips from his in gasp. 

Rio latches onto Beth’s neck then, holding her in place with his free hand on the back of her head as he sucks and bites, the sensation coating her body in goosebumps. 

She begins to push down at her own pants then, an act proven difficult with Rio firmly pressed up against her. He only relents when she reaches for his belt buckle, standing back to give her enough room to push his jeans and underwear down before pulling his hand out from between her legs and then turning around to face the counter. 

It isn’t lost on her, the similarities to their first encounter, but she knows she doesn’t have to explain that she isn’t recreating anything. It isn’t about that right now. Right now, she just wants to feel something other than uncertainty and fear; right now, she just wants to ease the throbbing between her legs.

She moans when he first pushes into her, knocking a few things off the counter when she reaches around for a better place to hold onto. His breath is hot on the back of her neck as he fucks her; longer strokes at first, then shorter, firm ones that make them both breathless quickly. 

Beth doesn’t know what song is playing anymore–she can’t register anything aside from the way she’s feeling, the way her body aches for more, her hips pushing back to meet his at every stroke. 

“Harder,” she pants, then groans when he does as she asks.

Inside, Beth feels like the rope that ties a ship to its anchor. Except the anchor isn’t anchored on anything. It’s just floating aimlessly under water, being dragged along by the ship, the rope twisting relentlessly in only one direction. It’s been that way since Rio appeared back in her life like some murderous, vengeful Jack In The Box. All she wants is to relieve the tension, and since she can’t undo the knots and twists, she aims for pulling until the rope snaps instead.

“Touch me,” she moans, grabbing the hand on her hip and guiding it around and between her legs. 

He fully buries his face in her hair then, grunting softly when the added pressure of his finger rounding her clit makes Beth clench around him. His left arm loops around her middle, holding her firmly against him as his hips jut in even sharper, shorter thrusts, his right hand buried between her legs, pulling her toward the edge right along with him. 

Beth gasps, one hand slamming down on the flat surface of the counter, sending delicate tissue paper, and other printing materials to the floor. She’s moaning again, her breathing growing more ragged as she nears that breaking point, her need tightening, and tightening, his breath hot on her neck, his hand…

“ _ Oh god _ ,” she blurts and then goes completely still as her orgasm overtakes her, holding on and then releasing in powerful shock waves. 

He too tumbles over right along with her, his hand working her long after he’s stopped thrusting into her, pulling her into another sharp release that takes her off guard. 

“Stop,” she begs, pushing at his hand when she can’t take it anymore and she’s left slumped over the counter, breathless and sated, Rio’s arm still wrapped around her waist, his lips pressed to her nape.

She relishes in the moment of peace and almost-tenderness; in the stillness of the afterglow, which doesn’t last nearly long enough. Within moments, the warmth of him is gone and she pulls on her underwear and pants to the sound of him doing the same.

When she finally gains the courage to turn around and face him, he’s tucking his gun, which somewhere along the way had also landed on the floor, back into his pants, his eyes on the drying bills when he says, “Let’s give 50/50 a shot.”

“Okay.” 

The way he looks at her then feels so...loaded. So full of endings and beginnings. She can almost see their future in that moment and it looks a lot like the past year; full of betrayals and reunions, of quick fucks in bar bathrooms, of almost trusting each other only to fuck it up with a lie. She thinks of  _ The Way We Were _ , and Barbra Streisand saying, “Your girl is lovely, Hubbell” and it makes Beth want to cry. 

She swallows the emotion, pushing it way down, and offers him a smile instead. 

“‘Night,” he says, and then he’s gone. 

Bill Withers is playing on the radio, and Beth marks this as the first day of a calm period, anticipating the moment the shit inevitably hits the fan once again. 


End file.
